120 
pliny's KATUEAL HISTOET. [Book XII. 
it has a musty smell, too, very much like that of the cyperus, 
with a sharp, acrid taste, the leaves being small, and growing 
in tufts. The heads of the nard spread out into ears ; hence 
it is that nard is so famous for its two-fold production, the- 
spike or ear, and the leaf. There is another kind, again, that 
grows on the banks of the Ganges, but is altogether con- 
demned, as being good for nothing; it bears the name of 
ozsenitis, and emits a fetid odour. Nard is adulterated 
with a sort of plant called pseudo-nard,^^ which is found 
growing everywhere, and is known by its thick, broad leaf, 
and its sickly colour, which inclines to white. It is so- 
phisticated, also, by being mixed with the root of the genuine 
nard, which adds very considerably to its weight. Gum is 
also used for the same purpose, antimony, and cyperus ; or, 
at least, the outer coat of the cyperus. Its genuineness is tested 
by its lightness, the redness of its colour, its sweet smell, and 
the taste more particularly, which parches the mouth, and 
leaves a pleasant flavour behind it ; the price of spikenard is 
one hundred denarii per pound. 
Leaf®^ nard varies in price according to the size ; for that 
which is known by the name of hadrosph serum, consisting of 
the larger leaves, sells at forty denarii per pound ; when the 
leaves are smaller, it is called mesosphserum, and is sold at 
sixty. But that which is considered the most valuable of all, 
is known as microsphaerum, and consists of the very smallest 
of the leaves ; it sells at seventy-five denarii per pound. All 
these varieties of nard have an agreeable odour, but it is most 
powerful when fresh. If the nard is old when gathered, that 
which is of a black colour is considered the best. 
In our part of the world, the Syrian nard is held in the 
80 From the Greek, o^aiva, "a putrid sore." Fee suggests that this 
may have been the Nardus hadrosphaerum of the moderns. 
81 Fee supposes that this is not lavender, as some have thought, but the 
AUium victorialis of modern naturalists, which is still mixed with the nard • 
from the Andropogon. He doubts the possibility of its having been adul- 
terated with substances of such a different nature as those mentioned here 
by Pliny. 
82 Fee is of opinion, that the Greek writers, from whom Pliny copied 
this passage, intended to speak of the ears of nard, or spikenard. 
83 According to Dioscorides, this appellation only means such nard as is 
cultivated in certain mountains of India which look toward Syria, and 
which, according to that author, was the best nard of all. Dalechamps and 
Hardouin, however, ridicule this explanation of the term. 
